Nearly a year and a half ago, patent holding firm Lodsys threatened to file suit against App Store developers making use of Apple's In App Purchase mechanism, claiming that they were infringing upon patents held by Lodsys.

Apple stepped in to protect developers, ultimately filing a motion to intervene in the lawsuits being pursued by Lodsys against developers who were unwilling to license the patents in question. Earlier this year, Apple was granted limited permission to intervene in the case to the extent that it could seek to demonstrate that its existing license with Lodsys covers developers' usage of In App Purchase.

There has been relatively little news on the Lodsys situation over the past six months, but Lodsys today published a blog post providing a status update. According to Lodsys, the U.S. Patent and Trademark has upheld the validity of a key claim of one of the major patents in question, stymying efforts by Google to have the patent invalidated entirely.Lodsys goes on to note that Apple is continuing to press forward with its assertions that patent rights have been exhausted via Apple's license to the patents, thereby protecting developers from Lodsys' actions. Lodsys obviously contests that assertion, and a trial on the issue is scheduled for early 2013.

In a separate blog post, Lodsys notes that it has gained licensing momentum, now having reached agreements with 150 developers to license the In App Purchase patents, with over 80% of those licenses being obtained without involving litigation.Lodsys has taken on companies big and small with its effort, initially focusing primarily on smaller developers but later taking on heavyweights such as Rovio, EA, and Atari. Lodsys' plan has been to provide developers with notices of infringement, giving developers 21 days to obtain a license before filing suit.

It seems that most developers have elected to simply license the patents rather than incurring the expense and time commitment necessary to fight a lawsuit, but others have not backed down and with the assistance of Apple, Google, and other larger companies have been seeking to hold out against Lodsys.

I could complain about this being a bogus patent, but I'm happy that the in-app purchases are being killed. A bunch of the apps made by small developers abuse them, and they're targeting small developers, so OK!

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